Thursday, May 18, 2006

Of course, I am brilliant. I scheduled a gynecologist appointment for the day before my birthday and two days before my fake wedding, but I like to keep things organized, and this is when I have my yearly exam. I know, "overshare." But I need to scratch out a couple of notes here that I wish to write more about later:

1. Not only is my doctor a trustworthy and intelligent physician, she's adorable, politically liberal, and she wears cute shoes.

2. When I get pregnant, it will be deemed, medically, an "elderly pregnancy."

3. Tomorrow, when I wake up in the morning, by the time I have picked up Marina and Eva at the airport, I will be 36 years old. Technically, ending my 36th year and beginning my 37th.

Elderly.

I hope that I have the strength to make it to the stage when Marina calls me for my vows...

Thursday, May 11, 2006

The Writer's Almanac, from Minnesota Public Radio, is available daily, online. It comes to one of my hundreds of email addresses, and I try to read it every morning. If you have heard it, you know it is done by Garrison Keillor, and it always starts with a poem and ends with "Be well, do good work, and keep in touch®." In the middle, he puts tidbits about that day, usually, but not always, relating to literature. It's great. It makes me crazy. Because of this little daily missive, I have added dozens of books to my wish list. I have read many, many lovely poems by poets old and new. And I have learned many things.

Today, he brought up this:

"On this day, in 1858 the state of Minnesota was admitted into the Union. It's the home of the world's largest Paul Bunyan statue, and it was from Minnesotans that we got the stapler, water skis, and roller blades—not to mention Scotch tape, Bisquick, and Spam."

He's not kidding about the "World's Largest Paul Bunyan Statue", but I can't help but wonder how many there are out there, and if this is really an achievement. I mean, there's a huge enormous Walleye (State Fish) on the shores of Lake Mille Lacs in Garrison, Minnesota, but is anyone squawking about that? Oh. Sorry. And by the way, there is at least one highly disturbing image here, in the answer to the "how many Paul Bunyans" question.

F. Scott Fitzgerald: Don't get me wrong. I didn't make it through "The Great Gatsby" in high school, and I most likely will never go back and try again, but there's something about being a manic-depressive crazy mooching drunken writer FROM MINNESOTA with an equally if not perhaps more crazy wife that I just love.

The First Minnesota Regiment at the Battle of Gettysburg: If you have never been to the Gettysburg Civil War Battlefield Park in Pennsylvania, I highly recommend that you stop by if you are ever in the neighborhood. The statue and plaque honoring the First Minnesota are not hard to find. They are cowering in the shadow of the towering domed marble Pennsylvania monument.

Charles Schulz: Come ON. Snoopy had a Van Gogh and a pool table and a spiral staircase in that little red doghouse. He was a WWI Flying Ace. We have Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and Lucy statues all over the Twin Cities. I kinda like it. The real Snoopy used to go to a vet in South Minneapolis.

Paul Wellstone: I met him. I worked for him on his last campaign. I miss him. Whatever you might have thought about his politics, he was truly a good man, a caring man, and someone whose voice is sadly missing from the politcal arena.

The first enclosed shopping mall: This is where I have to interject that I am not necessarily PROUD of all of these things, but the shopping mall is iconic American culture, unfortunately, and it started here because we were too cold to shop outside.

"Minnesota Nice" which is not really nice at all, but passive-aggressive behavior worthy of competing in the passive-aggressive Olympics but only if you think it's OK. No, no really. I don't need to. It's fine. I didn't really want to anyway. Don't worry about me.

We have a State Reptile (Blandings Turtle); a State Muffin (Blueberry, not my cat, whose name is not even "Muffin", but "Fritz", but "Muffin" is his nickname, and I have no idea why); a “territory motto” from back in the day that went wrong somewhere in the translation, and actually wound up not meaning anything, instead of almost something, which is why pioneers should not try to use Latin; and a state song that I have never even heard, but which is appropriately called "Hail! Minnesota" though if you punctuated it differently, it would be a command, and that would be even more fun: "Hail, Minnesota!"

And I am a little depressed that our State Drink is Milk. Not because I am lactose intolerant, or anything, but, well... MILK? COME ON, people. I guess I understand that our state drink really can’t be one of our excellent local beers, but MILK?! Any old mammal can make milk; it’s not really that hard or much of an accomplishment, nor were we originally designed to drink it past infancy or without chocolate cake.

All in all, I would have to say that it's good to live here, nice to be from here, and I have no plans on leaving, though it is pleasant to visit other places, and if I do come to see you, don't make a big bother because I don't like fuss and no no, really, I don't need any breakfast, and I'll bring my own beer, and PLEASE, sit down, I'll get it myself. It's ok. I don't mind.

Tuesday, May 2, 2006

Sorry.
If you were trying to get drunk last night, and it didn't work, it's my fault. You see, there is only so much "drunk" in the world, and I used it up. Did you know that after two Guinnii, and a little more than a bottle of red wine, you should NOT proceed to have another Guinness and a shot of Powers? On an empty stomach? Now, I know that's not a LOT, but on a Monday night? What was I thinking? It's such amateur behaviour. Way below the professional standards I usually apply to my drinking. It's always good to be crying on the shoulder of your future husband, in the pub where you met, at 1:00 in the morning, because you love him SO MUCH, on a MONDAY NIGHT. It makes Tuesday all that much yummier.

I blame this (and the four pairs of shoes that I bought in the past three days) on the wedding. I am going to blame everything from now until the end of June on the wedding because I can never blame anything on a wedding ever again because I am never getting married again. For many reasons. Not the least of which is that Pete (literally) rocks. This will be a break in my usual "blame the Bush administration" routine, but I will really only use it for personal excuses. Everything else that is wrong in the world is still the fault of the Bush administration.